In general I think it is a good article, and something important to keep in mind while dooming about what’s going on.
These are not evil geniuses enacting a careful, methodical, brilliant fascist takeover of the government: they are reactionaries operating on pure id that have deluded themselves into thinking that winning a non-majority of votes has granted them the mandate of heaven to do anything they want. And you need to look no further than the tariffs, and the fact that immediate and harsh price jumps are pretty much the ONE thing that will get everyone to pay attention to what’s going on. As much as Trump is a hostile country’s wet dream for America to crash and burn, tariffs are basically about the stupidest thing you can do immediately after winning election decided by inflation.
But implying that Trump is ‘stepping on rakes’ simply because judges are declaring things like the funding freeze unconstitutional is belying the deeper “who watches the watchers” problem with actually enforcing that judicial order (especially with Musk having a direct line in there now). It’s the ongoing problem of who is actually going to stop them from doing any of the things they’re doing, and I don’t know the answer to that question. MAYBE that will change if the tariffs are as relentlessly destructive as we all imagine they will be, but I don’t know.
riceandcashews on
Great article
EagleBeaverMan on
This is a great article but I can’t help but scoff at the irony after a year of the New York Times being famously credulous of every bold-faced lie Trump told.
Captainatom931 on
Damn fine article that provides an excellent summary of how these reactionary dumbasses are being led by King Conman.
Here in the UK, Boris Johnson managed to “flood the zone” for a solid two years…until the bottom fell out and he started losing by-elections (even before a massive personal scandal). Eventually, the media’s big story stopped being whatever Boris flooded the zone with, and started being all the shit he was actually doing. And that ended up destroying not only him, but his party top – because nobody who replaced him had any ability to build the Boris voter coalition back up.
Voters are fickle, success in politics is ephemeral, and nothing lasts forever.
InfinityArch on
>You could see this a few ways: Is Trump playing a part, making a bet or triggering a crisis? Those are the options. I am not certain he knows the answer. Trump has always been an improviser. But if you take it as calculated, here is the calculation: Perhaps this Supreme Court, stocked with his appointees, gives him powers no peacetime president has ever possessed. Perhaps all of this becomes legal now that he has asserted its legality. It is not impossible to imagine that bet paying off.
>But Trump’s odds are bad. So what if the bet fails and his arrogations of power are soundly rejected by the courts? Then comes the question of constitutional crisis: Does he ignore the court’s ruling? To do that would be to attempt a coup. I wonder if they have the stomach for it. The withdrawal of the Office of Management and Budget’s order to freeze spending suggests they don’t. Bravado aside, Trump’s political capital is thin. Both in his first and second terms, he has entered office with approval ratings below that of any president in the modern era. Gallup has Trump’s approval rating at 47 percent — about 10 points beneath Joe Biden’s in January 2021.
Yeah about that; last update from Elon is that he’s going to start canceling grants unilaterally. I don’t know if it’ll succeed, but they’re really going to try and just ignore the courts’ rulings when they start deciding aginast them.
angry-mustache on
It would be great if NYT said this 8 years ago or even 8 months ago instead of sanewashing trump until 8 days ago.
8 Comments
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https://archive.is/WrNy5
In general I think it is a good article, and something important to keep in mind while dooming about what’s going on.
These are not evil geniuses enacting a careful, methodical, brilliant fascist takeover of the government: they are reactionaries operating on pure id that have deluded themselves into thinking that winning a non-majority of votes has granted them the mandate of heaven to do anything they want. And you need to look no further than the tariffs, and the fact that immediate and harsh price jumps are pretty much the ONE thing that will get everyone to pay attention to what’s going on. As much as Trump is a hostile country’s wet dream for America to crash and burn, tariffs are basically about the stupidest thing you can do immediately after winning election decided by inflation.
But implying that Trump is ‘stepping on rakes’ simply because judges are declaring things like the funding freeze unconstitutional is belying the deeper “who watches the watchers” problem with actually enforcing that judicial order (especially with Musk having a direct line in there now). It’s the ongoing problem of who is actually going to stop them from doing any of the things they’re doing, and I don’t know the answer to that question. MAYBE that will change if the tariffs are as relentlessly destructive as we all imagine they will be, but I don’t know.
Great article
This is a great article but I can’t help but scoff at the irony after a year of the New York Times being famously credulous of every bold-faced lie Trump told.
Damn fine article that provides an excellent summary of how these reactionary dumbasses are being led by King Conman.
Here in the UK, Boris Johnson managed to “flood the zone” for a solid two years…until the bottom fell out and he started losing by-elections (even before a massive personal scandal). Eventually, the media’s big story stopped being whatever Boris flooded the zone with, and started being all the shit he was actually doing. And that ended up destroying not only him, but his party top – because nobody who replaced him had any ability to build the Boris voter coalition back up.
Voters are fickle, success in politics is ephemeral, and nothing lasts forever.
>You could see this a few ways: Is Trump playing a part, making a bet or triggering a crisis? Those are the options. I am not certain he knows the answer. Trump has always been an improviser. But if you take it as calculated, here is the calculation: Perhaps this Supreme Court, stocked with his appointees, gives him powers no peacetime president has ever possessed. Perhaps all of this becomes legal now that he has asserted its legality. It is not impossible to imagine that bet paying off.
>But Trump’s odds are bad. So what if the bet fails and his arrogations of power are soundly rejected by the courts? Then comes the question of constitutional crisis: Does he ignore the court’s ruling? To do that would be to attempt a coup. I wonder if they have the stomach for it. The withdrawal of the Office of Management and Budget’s order to freeze spending suggests they don’t. Bravado aside, Trump’s political capital is thin. Both in his first and second terms, he has entered office with approval ratings below that of any president in the modern era. Gallup has Trump’s approval rating at 47 percent — about 10 points beneath Joe Biden’s in January 2021.
Yeah about that; last update from Elon is that he’s going to start canceling grants unilaterally. I don’t know if it’ll succeed, but they’re really going to try and just ignore the courts’ rulings when they start deciding aginast them.
It would be great if NYT said this 8 years ago or even 8 months ago instead of sanewashing trump until 8 days ago.